See “Why Our Great-Grandparents were Happier Than We Are…” for many more examples of what Scott Lahti calls “pictures of freedom lost.”

On the Mises Blog, William Anderson has an interesting review of Krugman’s latest (and more insidious than usual) apology for economic fascism, but what really caught my attention was this comment from “Adam I.”:

You know what I’ve realized about these guys? It’s true for pretty much all American foreign policy thinkers too.

History begins in 1930. There are five historical events:

• The Crash of ‘29 and the Great Depression
• The Rise of Hitler
• WWII
• The Cold War
• 9/11

That’s it. That’s history. Economists seem to stop paying attention in the 1950s anyway, so their list is even shorter.

From Adventures in Editing:

05.16.09 | The Origins of OK

Posted in Editorial Musings at 7:07 pm by Administrator

How many times a day do you say or write “OK”? Quite a few, right? Now, have you ever wondered where “OK” came from? Perhaps not, but since one of my main jobs is to tell you things you never knew you wanted to know, I am about to tell you some of the history of “OK.”

For the record, I am summarizing from The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. If you want the complete story, please refer to that fine, fun volume.

You may already know that “OK” is thought to be an abbreviation for “all correct.” That’s great, but then shouldn’t the abbreviation be “AC”? Just imagine thousands of sixteen-year-olds saying, “Mom, I’m borrowing the car tonight, AC?” Sounds weird, right? Either “OK” was created by a bad speller or there is more to the story. Turns out there is more to the story.

Apparently there was an “abbreviation fad” in American cities in the 1830s (when “OK” appeared, and way before text messaging!). Abbreviating phrases was the hip thing to do. “One kind kiss before we part” became “O.K.K.B.W.P.,” which sounds so nineteenth century compared to “LOL” or “BFF.” It was also fashionable to deliberately misspell words and then abbreviate them. “All right” became “oll wright” and was abbreviated “O.W.” Got it? (Webster does not mention whether this misspelling-and-abbreviating fad was actually a conspiracy among young people to confuse old people. I see room for further research here.)

You are undoubtedly way ahead of me by now and have already figured out that “all correct” was transformed into “oll korrect,” which was abbreviated “OK.” OK?

There is another theory, which says that “OK” is from the Choktaw word “okeh.” Woodrow Wilson used the “okeh” spelling, considering “OK” to be just plain wrong. Some people just like to be different.

Which story is korrect? I prefer the misspelling/abbreviating conspiracy theory. Let’s never take our language so seriously that we forbid ourselves from playing with it. OK? Oll wright!

… to arguing with libertarians:

If they advocate the abolition of some government program from which they personally benefit, call them hypocrites.

If they advocate the abolition of some government program from which they don’t personally benefit, call them selfish.

– austro-athenian empire

“No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom remains.”

– Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman (via Laurence M. Vance)

From Barbara Frank Online:

Ok, class, time for a quick current events pop quiz:

Which country just approved a $6 billion initiative that includes the following, directing its legislative body to determine:

“….whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”

FULL BLOG POST

Another Modern Superstition Identified & Destroyed

Posted by Stephen Carson at March 27, 2009 11:33 AM

When I was in gov’t school as a child I absorbed some kind of hyper-Whig theory of history… We live now at the pinnacle and culmination of civilization. The only reason to learn about the past is to learn about those hopeless neanderthals who believed the earth was flat, believed flies came from old rags, thought slavery was great, were racists and sexists and listened to Glenn Miller.

Of course, there was never any hint that our own age might have superstitions and unreasoned prejudices of its own.

Eventually putting away childish things, I learned that the view of the past I absorbed wasn’t very charitable to say the least. For example, it is a myth that the earth being flat was generally accepted in the Middle Ages.

But more relevantly, I have learned that our own age has superstitions as well. Hayek usefully defined superstition as thinking you understand something that you really don’t. He held up Keynesianism and Marxism as chief superstitions of the 20th century. In the case of Marxism and its appalling body count we have a modern superstition as terrible or worse than the ones of our forebears.

In a delightful lecture at the recent Austrian Scholars Conference, Gerard Casey from Dublin put his finger on another modern superstition. FULL BLOG POST